politics

CLAIM: The number of homes in Northern Ireland that have had their housing supplementary payments removed has increased five times more in the past year.

CONCLUSION: Accurate with considerations. The 140 households whose top-up payments ceased in the past year is four times more than the 35 households in the previous year. Also, we do not know the current status of the 175 households whose top-up payments have ceased. As of 30/9/2018, there are 32,378 households who are receiving the supplementary payments.Continue reading Homes paying bedroom tax increased fivefold?

What is fact checking and why is it important?by FactCheckNI16 November 2018

WHAT IS FACT CHECKING?

The Oxford Dictionary describes fact checking as a process seeking to “investigate (an issue) in order to verify the facts”. However, while instructive, this necessarily concise definition is limited in its understanding of the practical outworkings of what constitutes fact checking, the variation and scope of its practices, as well as the factors and social, political and cultural contexts in which fact checking has become an established practice.Continue reading What is fact checking and why is it important?

Labour politician Lord Adonis recently tweeted that he finds it “scandalous that Ulster’s second city is still denied its own university”. He later acknowledged that Derry-Londonderry had its own campus as part of Ulster University, however its headquarters are in Coleraine. The university used to be called the New University of Ulster (NUU), which opened 50 years ago, and could have been based in Derry-Londonderry.Continue reading No university in Derry-Londonderry?

CLAIM: “City Deals” by the UK Government are part of the Democratic Unionist Party’s Confidence and Supply Agreement with the Conservative Party.

CONCLUSION: Unclear. (“False” in an earlier version of this fact check.) The DUP claim that “City Deals are part of our Confidence and Supply Agreement” is not explicitly referenced in the text of the Confidence and Supply Agreement they made with the Conservative Party, nor referenced by the Chancellor Philip Hammond in delivering his “Financial Statement” (29/10/2018). But as part of discussions between the Conservative Party and the DUP, the UK Government committed itself to working with the Northern Ireland Executive and other stakeholders towards city deals in Northern Ireland. The Belfast Regional City Deal was negotiated and agreed among Belfast City Council, the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland, and the UK Government.